Overview

A sales plan is a tactical, detailed description of how to achieve the sales objectives specified in the marketing plan. A Strategic Dynamics sales plan includes at least the following:

• Sales forecast — e.g., total; by product, area and/or region; by sales representative; by channel member; by month; etc.
• Size and organizational structure of the sales force
• Geographical location, size and potential of sales territories
• Hiring, staffing and retention methodology
• Job descriptions
• Compensation/incentive plan
• Employee-recognition programs/awards
• Sales training, mentoring and coaching
• Opportunity identification, opportunity management and large-account management plan
• Lead-management system
• Trade show selling activities
• Channel-partner strategy and agreements
• Pricing, terms and conditions of sale
• Sales-promotion activities
• Sales playbook
• Sales-reporting methodology
• Technology plan to measure and improve sales-force effectiveness
• Mapping of the buy-sell process

You need to be right about your hiring decisions. Does your company have a system in place to ensure that you don’t overlook the stars or inadvertently hire poor performers? Through Miller Heiman & Profile International, we offer a pre-employment assessment and evaluation solution that gives you a quantitative basis for selecting and retaining the best people. Our EEO-compliant solution helps you:

• Select quality employees with a greater level of confidence
• Evaluate and select the best candidate for promotion
• Reduce hiring and replacement costs
• Increase employee productivity
• Improve selection accuracy by a statistically measurable 20-45%
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SEA is an 180° assessment designed exclusively for individuals that participate in the sales cycle revolving around eight (8) universal sales competencies and seventeen (17) sales skill sets in the categories of Opportunity Identification, Opportunity Management and Relationship Management. Participants are asked to identify their view of the skills most important to being successful in their role and to self-assess how consistently they apply them in real selling/implementation situations. Managers assess the individual sales people for the observed consistency and determine gaps in both selling skill execution and perception of what skills are critical. Managers will be provided reports of individual sales people for one-on-one coaching and for communicating what skills are important for that role. The results are leveraged to align sales people and their managers on the day-to-day activities most critical for a sales role and which activities a salesperson (or sales team, or the entire sales organization) needs coaching and development on to improve their sales efficiency to meet and exceed the expectations of the sales organization. The results streamline the manager to salesperson coaching sessions allowing the manager to immediately focus the session on addressing the needs rather than discovering them. Teams can be re-assessed after the development plan is implemented to determine where behaviors have been adjusted and where there is a need for ongoing focus. The areas reported on are as follows:

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Our management coaching reinforces the specific selling skills that improve sales-force performance. We show sales leaders how to quickly identify opportunities that lead to desired results. Our tools provide an ongoing management-support system that analyzes, reinforces and provides feedback on sales-force effectiveness. We also help your organization adapt culturally to the training that has been performed and assist you in developing specific metrics that ensure results.

In football, a playbook is a master list of all the plays that a team will use during the season. Each player must learn to execute each play, and their execution must be precise and flawless. The coaches decide what specific plays to use for each particular game and for each unique situation that arises during the game. When you build a sales playbook, you are providing your sales representative with a road map to winning a sale. To assemble a sales playbook, first create flowcharts of the company’s sales process and the customer’s purchase process. Then define how long each step typically takes to accomplish along with resources that are available. Include all of the questions that should be asked and the information that should be provided to each buying influence at each stage of the buying process. Checklists should also be included to ensure each step is completed by both the buyer and the seller. This ensures that every sales opportunity is in the correct position in the funnel. This will allow you to forecast more accurately and to know exactly where you are in the sales process from the buyers perspective. A Sales Playbook also includes the Buyer Personas of each buying influence. A sales playbook should be developed for every product you sell.

A carpenter needs tools and a professional sales representative does as well. Sales Toolkits vary in scope and intensity. Some are stand-alone documents and some are embedded into a CRM or internal company portal. Here is a small sampling of items to assist sales representatives or channel partners in earning the sale.